Description: I saw an electric bluestreak in the eastern sky. The object was about 1 & 1/2 times thesize of the moon at that time. The object was about an inch to the leftof the moon, which was visually about a foot above the horizon. Inoticed the object when it was at about the height the moon was at thispoint. It descended towards the horizon in a straight line lasting 1 to2 seconds although the tail did not really appear to be tapering. Iimmediately thought meteorite & half expected to hear it impactsomewhere east of Longview, Washington. My impression was of a roundelectric blue, large object moving toward the eastern sky in very rapidstages. Was this a meteorite? I have never seen this color nor anobject other than the moon of this size in the sky.

Note: I suspectthat the witness saw a meteor. Most meteors are green, red or orange incolor. A few meteors are greenish-blue or blue in color. No meteorswere reported to the American Meteor Society web site on this date, butthis does not mean that no meteors were in the sky on the above dateand time.

Strangespiral: Residents in northern Norway were left stunned after thelightshow, which almost looked computer-generated, appeared in theskies above them

A mysterious light display appearing over Norway last night has left thousands of residents in the north of the country baffled.

Witnesses from Trøndelag to Finnmark compared the amazing sight toanything from a Russian rocket to a meteor or a shock wave - althoughno one appears to have mentioned UFOs yet.

The phenomenon began when what appeared to be a blue lightseemed to soar up from behind a mountain. It stopped mid-air, thenbegan to circulate.

Within seconds a giant spiral hadcovered the entire sky. Then a green-blue beam of light shot out fromits centre - lasting for ten to twelve minutes before disappearing completely.

The Norwegian Meteorological Institute was flooded with telephone callsafter the light storm - which astronomers have said did not appear tohave been connected to the aurora, or Northern Lights, so common inthat area of the world.

Fred Hansen, from Bø in Vesterålen, described the sight as 'like a big fireball that went around, with a great light around it again.'

He said: 'My first thought was that it was a fireball meteor, but it has lasted far too long.

'It may have been a missile in Russia, but I can not guarantee that it is the answer.'

Air Traffic control in Tromsø claimed the light show lasted fortwo minutes, but admitted that was 'far too long to be an astronomicalphenomena.'

Tromsø Geophysical Observatory researcher Truls Lynne Hansen was certain the light had been caused by a missile launch.

He told Norwegian media that the missile had likely lostcontrol and exploded. The spiral, he claimed, was the result of lightreflecting on the leaking fuel. He was quoted as saying the light wassunlight, despite the strange lights showing up at night.

The Barents Observer quoted Norwegian Defencespokesman Jon Espen Lien as saying that the Norwegian military does notknow what the lights were - but that they were probably from a Russianmissile.

He said it was normal for Russia to use the White Sea and the Barents Sea as a testing ground for missiles.

Severaleyewitnesses reported seeing a bluish-green fireball over northernGermany on Monday night - possibly a large meteor burning up in theEarth's atmosphere, according to experts at the German Aerospace Centre(DLR).

The object was first sighted over Braunschweig around 11:40 pm, butpeople in Celle, Delmenhorst, Lüneburg, Grabow, Kiel and Hannover alsospotted the fireball streaking across the sky. The Network forResearching Unusual Heavenly Phenomena (CENAP) said on Tuesday theobject eventually broke up into brightly glowing pieces beforedisappearing.

Wilfried Tost from the DLR said the fireball was likely ameteor, explaining that on average one falls to Earth over CentralEurope each month.

Last spring, a German meteorite researcher found the remains of another spectacular fireball on the Danish island of Lolland.

A German boy this summer also claimed he was hit in the hand by a pebble-sized meteorite as he was on his way to school.

Wailua - Residents are still talking about the unique light show they witnessed in the evening skies last week.

A "big ol' honking fireball" was what Steve Yoder said he saw while hewas on his way to Wailua from Waimea the night of Dec. 2. A "flaminggreen" object lit up the eastern sky right before 9 p.m.

"I hadn't started drinking yet," he said with a laugh.

In fact, Yoder said he found it hard to believe there has notyet been an explanation for what he saw, much like the loud noise overKalaheo reported by residents in May of this year.

"I've seen meteorites all my life," he said. But added thatwhat he saw was much different. "It was either a gigantic asteroid orone of the biggest meteorites I have ever seen."

About the size of a dime in the sky, it traveled at adownward angle for less than five seconds until it disappeared into thehorizon, he said.

Residents as far as Anahola also reported seeing similar "orange and green" objects beginning around dusk the same evening, "some of them hovering over car ports in Anahola," said an Eastside resident who wished to remain anonymous.

The observer was one of many Eastside residents, particularlyin the Waipouli and Wailua Homesteads areas, who saw unusual activityoccurring around 8 p.m.

"There was an incredible number of shooting stars that night,"they added. "We always have beautiful stars dashing everywhere, butthis was an amazing sight."

"PMRF did not have any range operations, either on land or inthe air on the evening of Dec. 2," wrote Pacific Missile RangeFacility's spokesperson Tom Clements. "As a reminder, we also did not have operations on the evening that the (possibly jet) noise was heard over Kalaheo."

University of Hawai'i Professor of Astronomy Dr. Gareth Wynn-Williamssaid what witnesses are describing "certainly sounds like a largemeteor."

"While it's always a thrill to see one, they are not all thatuncommon and they don't get centrally recorded anywhere, as far as Iknow," he wrote in an e-mail Thursday. "But if you were to see part ofit actually hit the ground, it would be well worth searching for themeteorite itself."

What one observes in the sky is actually called a meteor and is referenced as a meteorite when it hits the ground, he added.

"Only the very largest meteors make it through to be meteorites," he said.

Whether or not the objects seen were actually meteors, theycontinue to be unidentified. However, "the most reliable meteor showerof the year," according to Skyscrapers Inc., is set to peak thisweekend.

More than 100 meteors can be seen per hour during the Geminidsmeteor shower and it should be "a great show for Hawai'i," according togohawaii.com.

The shower can occur between Dec. 7 and Dec. 17, but peaks Dec. 13 and 14.

Finding that the sky is blue is not unusual, unless it's 1:15 in the morning.

That's what happened early Friday when observers from western Minnesotato northern Wisconsin reported seeing a bright blue or green flash inthe sky.

The National Weather Service in Grand Forks, North Dakota,logged a call at 1:25 a.m. from someone 15 miles west of Bemidji,Minnesota, who reported the sky looked green.

The weather station then heard from a sister station inDuluth, Minn., which passed along observations from law enforcementagencies in Wisconsin, where a huge fireball was seen near the town ofFifield that created temporary mid-day brightness, said Bill Barrett, aWeather Service official in Grand Forks.

Officials suspect the phenomena was a meteor, as this week marks the peak of the Geminid meteor shower, Barrett said.

A Becker County Sheriff's Department deputy was dispatched toinvestigate two reports of lights in the sky about 1:36 a.m., SheriffTim Gordon said.

The reports came from Highway 10 near Frazee, Minn., and Highway 34 east of Detroit Lakes.

Nothing was found, but the area was checked to make sure it wasn't a downed plane, Gordon said.

Gordon said there was ice fog in the sky and it's likely thatwhatever the object was, it appeared to be closer to the earth than itactually was.

He said the sheriff's department received similar reports oflights in the sky about a month ago, when weather conditions weresimilar and another meteor shower was occurring.

There have been other strange lights in the sky in recent days and weeks.

Earlier in the week, a bright ball of blue light spotted overNorway, which was also caught on video, is now believed to have been aRussian missile test that went bad.

In early December, a bright ball of fire was seen over one of the Hawaiian islands. A meteor is suspected in that sighting.

Thisweekend, Earth is passing through a stream of debris from extinct comet3200 Phaethon, source of the annual Geminid meteor shower. Forecastersexpect more than 100 meteors per hour to fly out of the constellationGemini when the shower peaks on Dec. 13th and 14th. For most observers,the best time to look will be from 10 pm local time on Sunday night todawn on Monday morning.

"That was a good one," says NASA astronomer Bill Cooke, who recordedthe meteor using an all-sky camera at the Marshall Space Flight Centerin Huntsville, Alabama. "We should see many more this weekend." Cookeand colleagues are broadcasting a live video feedfrom their camera, which will monitor the skies over Huntsvillethroughout the Geminid meteor shower. The soundtrack is a 55 MHzforward-scatter meteor radar located near the optical camera.

Got clouds? If you can't see the Geminid meteor shower, try listeninginstead. The US Air Force Space Surveillance Radar is scanning theskies above Texas, and when a meteor passes overhead--ping!--there isan echo. Tune into Spaceweather Radio for live audio.

Atrail of gold. That's what a Langham women said an apparent meteor leftbehind when it zipped across the Saskatchewan night sky. Laurie Suikersays she was driving home just before 6:00 Friday evening on Highway16, near Lutheran Road, when she saw a flash of light. She initiallythought it was a shooting star.

"I watched it trail for a tiny bit and then it went, poof !"said Suiker. "And there was this beautiful golden shower. It wasn'thuge. It was way up there, but it was pretty beautiful."

Suiker described the flash for her husband, Chris, andcompared it to the meteor sighting in November of 2008 near theAlberta/Saskatchewan border (Flash pictured right).

"It was not even close to that, but it was stillpretty nice to see. It didn't light up the whole sky or anything. Iwatched (the trail) for about four minutes."

Meantime, one astronomy enthusiast said Suiker's sightingisn't surprising. Gary Stone, former president of the RoyalAstronomical Society in Saskatoon,said the Earth always passes throughcomet debris this time of year.

"Being that it's near the peak of the Geminid meteor shower,it's quite likely it's an early one." said Stone. He added peopleshould look to the Saskatchewan sky this weekend, as they could seequite the show in throughout Sunday morning, evening, and Mondaymorning. He's expecting to see 120 to 140 meteors an hour at the peak,most no bigger than a kernel of corn, but still visible to the nakedeye.

Comment: A comment posted by a reader to the original article stated:

Saw something appearing...

On December 13th, 2009 LeRyck (not verified) says:

I am from Quebec city. Saturday evening, at 17:50 local time, I saw aquite big green ball streaking through the sky from East to West orpossible from ENE to WSW. It was followed by a reddish tail. The wholeexperience did not last more than about 2 seconds. I saw it through awindow. I roughly estimated its speed to 20,000 km/s.

NASA'snew infrared space telescope was launched into orbit on Monday on a10-month mission expected to reveal previously unseen objects rangingfrom near-Earth asteroids to some of the most distant galaxies in thecosmos.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, was carried into apolar orbit 326 miles above Earth by a Delta II rocket that lifted offbefore dawn from Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California.

"All systems are looking good, and we are on our way to seeingthe entire sky better than ever before," said William Irace, themission's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory inPasadena.

The $320 million instrument is designed to scan theentire heavens for the infrared radiation, or glow of heat, given offby objects that are too cold, too far away or too shrouded in dust tobe seen by conventional visible-light telescopes.

Scientists say the spacecraft's detectors are about 500 timesmore sensitive than those of the last infrared sky survey in 1983, andare capable of producing photograph-quality images of the objects theyfind.

Among phenomena likely to be uncovered are large numbers offailed stars called brown dwarfs -- balls of gas many times smallerthan the sun that lack sufficient mass to trigger their own internalstellar engines.

Optically invisible, brown dwarfs are thought to be morenumerous than actual stars in the nearby universe. Some may reside evencloser to Earth than the nearest known star, Proxima Centauri, about 4light years away.

Closer to home, WISE is expected to find hundreds ofpreviously uncharted asteroids and comets in the neighborhood ofEarth's orbit, revealing more about the inventory of such "near-Earthobjects" and their composition.

At the farthest reach of its gaze, WISE will be able toilluminate and peer through the dense haze that has obscured some ofthe most distant and powerful star clusters in the universe -- a classof objects called ultra-luminous galaxies.

Located 10 billion light years from Earth, these galaxies arebelieved to be super-incubators of new stars, shining with more than atrillion times the light of the sun, though most of that light isemitted in infrared.

An investigation by the University of Kansas' Adrian Melott andcolleagues reveals a promising new method of detecting past cometstrikes upon Earth and gauging their frequency

It's the stuff of a Hollywood disaster epic: A comet plungesfrom outer space into the Earth's atmosphere, splitting the sky with adevastating shock wave that flattens forests and shakes thecountryside.

But this isn't a disaster movie plotline.

"Comet impacts might be much more frequent than we expect,"said Adrian Melott, professor of physics and astronomy at theUniversity of Kansas. "There's a lot of interest in the rate of impactevents upon the Earth. We really don't know the rate very well becausemost craters end up being destroyed by erosion or the comets go intothe ocean and we don't know that they're there. We really don't have agood handle on the rate of impacts on the Earth."

An investigation by Melott and colleagues reveals apromising new method of detecting past comet strikes upon Earth andgauging their frequency. The results will be unveiled at the AmericanGeophysical Union's Fall Meeting, to be held Dec. 14-18 in SanFrancisco.

The research shows a potential signature of nitrate andammonia that can be found in ice cores corresponding to suspectedimpacts. Although high nitrate levels previously have been tied tospace impacts, scientists have never before seen atmospheric ammoniaspikes as indicators of space impacts with our planet.

"Now we have a possible new marker for extraterrestrial eventsin ice," Melott said. "You don't just look for nitrates, you also lookfor ammonia."

In June 1908, a puzzling explosion rocked central Siberia inRussia; it came to be known as the "Tunguska event." A later expeditionfound that 20 miles of trees had been knocked down and set alight bythe blast. Today, scientists have coalesced around the idea thatTunguska's devastation was caused by a 100-foot asteroid that hadentered Earth's atmosphere, causing an airburst.

Some 13,000 years earlier, an occurrence thought by someresearchers to be an extraterrestrial impact set off cooler weather andlarge-scale extinctions in North America. The "Younger Dryas event," asit is known, coincided with the end of the prehistoric Clovis culture.

Melott and fellow researchers examined data from ice coresextracted in Greenland to compare atmospheric chemistry during theTunguska and Younger Dryas events. In both instances, Melott's groupfound evidence that the Haber process - whereby a nitrogen fixationreaction produces ammonia - may have occurred on a large scale.

"A comet entering the atmosphere makes a big shock wave withhigh pressure - 6,000 times the pressure of air," said Melott. "It canbe shown that under those conditions you can make ammonia. Plus theTunguska comet, or some fragments of it, landed in a swamp. And anyYounger Dryas comet presumably hit an ice sheet, or at least part of itdid. So there should have been lots of water around for this Haberprocess to work. We think the simplest way to explain the signal inboth objects is the Haber process. Comets hit the atmosphere in thepresence of a lot of water and you get both nitrate and ammonia, whichis what both ice cores show."

Melott cautions that the results are inconclusive because theice cores are sampled at five-year intervals only, not sufficientresolution to pinpoint peaks of atmospheric nitrates and ammonia, whichrapidly would have been dissipated by rains following a comet strike.

But the KU researcher contends that ammonia enhancementresulting from the Haber process could serve as a useful marker fordetecting possible comet impacts. He encourages more sampling andanalysis of ice cores to see where the nitrate-ammonia signal mightline up with suspected cometary collisions with the Earth.

Such information could help humankind more accurately gauge the danger of a comet hitting the Earth in the future.

"There's a whole program to watch for near-Earth asteroids asthey go around the sun repeatedly, and some of them have close brusheswith the Earth," said Melott. "But comets are a whole different ballgame. They don't do that circular thing. They come straight in fromfar, far out - and you don't see them coming until they push out a tailonly a few years before they would enter the inner solar system. So wecould be hit by a comet and only have a few years' warning - possiblynot enough time to do anything about it."

Aninternational team of scientists led by researchers at the Universityof Hawaii at Manoa has found no evidence supporting an extraterrestrialimpact event at the onset of the Younger Dryas approximately 13,000years ago.

The Younger Dryas is an abrupt cooling event in Earth'shistory. It coincided with the extinction of many large mammalsincluding the woolly mammoth, the saber toothed jaguar and many sloths.This cooling period is generally considered to be the result of thecomplex global climate system, possibly spurred on by a reduction orslowdown of the thermohaline circulation in North America. Thisparadigm was challenged two years ago by a group of researchers thatreported finding high iridium concentrations in terrestrial sedimentsdated during this time period, which led them to theorise that animpact event was instead the instigator of this climate shift.

A team led by François Paquay, a Doctoral graduate student inthe Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Hawaii atManoa (UHM) decided to also investigate this theory, to add moreevidence to what they considered a conceptually appealing theory.However, not only were they unable to replicate the results found bythe other researchers, but additional lines of evidence failed tosupport an impact theory for the onset of the Younger Dryas.

Their results will be published in the December 7th early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The idea that an impact event may have been the instigator for thiscooling period was appealing because of several alleged impact markers,especially the high iridium concentrations that the previous teamreported. However, it is difficult for proponents of this theory toexplain why no impact crater of this age is known. "There is a blackmat layer across North America which is correlated to the Younger Dryasclimatic shift seen in Greenland ice cores dated at 13,000 years ago byradio carbon," explains Paquay. "Initially I thought this type of layercould be associated with an impact event because concentration in theproxies of widespread wildfires are sky high. That plus very highlevels of iridium (which is one indicator used to indicateextraterrestrial impact events). So the theory was conceptuallyappealing, but because of the missing impact site, the idea of one ormultiple airburst arose."

To corroborate the theory, Paquay and his colleagues decidedto take a three-pronged approach. The first was to replicate theoriginal researchers data, the second step was to look for othertracers, specifically osmium isotopes, of extraterrestrial matter inthose rocks, and the third step was to look for these concentrations inother settings. "Because there are so many aspects to the impacttheory, we decided to just focus on geochemical evidence that wasassociated with it, like the concentration of iridium and otherplatinum group elements, and the osmium isotopes," says Paquay. "Wealso decided to look in very high resolution sediment cores acrossNorth America, and yet we could find nothing in our data to supporttheir theory."

The team includes American, Belgian and Canadian researchers.Analysis of the sediments was done both at UHM and in Belgium, usingthe same sediments from the same interval and indepedently did theanalysis work and got similar results. Both the marine and terrestrialsediment records do not indicate that an impact event was the triggerfor the transition into the Younger Dryas cold period. "The marine andterrestrial record both complement each other to support this finding,"concludes Paquay. "That's what makes the beauty of this study."

This project was supported by the Geological Society ofAmerica and the National Science Foundation. Sediment samples wereprovided by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program.

The other authors from this paper are Greg Ravizza (also fromUHM), Steven Goderis and Philippe Claeys from Vrije UniversiteitBrussel, Frank Vanhaeck from the Universiteit Ghent, Matthew Boyd fromLakehead University, Todd A. Surovell from the University of Wyoming atLaramie, and Vance T. Holliday and C. Vance Haynes, Jr. from theUniversity of Arizona at Tucson.

This research will be presented at the American GeophysicalUnion Fall 2009 Meeting in San Francisco. Wednesday December 16th, 2:52PM -- 3:04 PM, Room 2006 Moscone West

Witness Statement: From my location justNorth of the town centre in Redditch, I saw a single green lightcrossing the sky from East to West at an angle of elevation of about30-40 degrees, and over Redditch town centre (although it wasimpossible to tell how far away it was).

I would estimate the light to have been 10-15% the apparentdiameter of the Sun, and wasa vivid green reminiscent of a flare, butnot as bright.

I appreciate that that direction of travel would havemade the starboard navigation light of an aircraft a possibility, butit was far brighter than a nav light, and it's size as viewed wouldhave put the aircraft only a few hundred metres away. There was nosound whatsoever.

Redditch is now within the Controlled Airspace surroundingBirmingham, but Birmingham Zone air traffic control was not talking toany aircraft in the vicinity at the time, and nothing showed up on myVirtual Radar system.

A long white trail that appeared to be the fall of a meteorite was seen in the morning over the mountains.

However, after several inquiries the meteorite hypothesis was dismissed against the hipothesis of a meteorological effect.

According to sources of the Bureau of Aeronautics, it was an aircraftthat was headed for Argentina and that, by the effects of temperaturedifference and contact of the turbine with the cooler air, generated abright trail that remained in the sky.

Esteban Hermosilla captured this phenomenon in the morning when droving to work from Lo Barnechea to Huechuraba.

"I was going down the Costanera highway and you could clearlysee the marked trail, so I took a picture with my cellphone. I didn'tknow what it was, I was astonished, I thought it was a plane but it wasvery strange"said Esteban Hermosilla.

"At 9 p.m. Central Time on Dec. 16th, a very bright meteor lit up thecompletely overcast sky like lightning in southeast Nebraska," reportsTrooper Jerry Chab of the Nebraska State Patrol. "It flashed forapproximately 2 seconds and was followed by ground shaking, whichprompted many calls by the public to law enforcement in a three countywide area." The USGS saysthere was a magnitude 3.5 earthquake near Auburn, Nebraska, at 8:53 pmWednesday night, about the same time and place as the fireball.Coincidence? Readers in Nebraska with photos or eyewitness accounts areencouraged to submit a report.

A sonic boom like sound heard by many late last night is something thathas happened before, according to State Police. They tell us that iswhat it probably is. They tell us there was nothing reported to themlast night as far as an explosion or anything suspicious. Delaware'sDover Air Force Base has no information regarding any aircraft fromtheir base that the noise may have been related to.

Ahuge meteor hurtles to Earth during the annual Geminid meteor shower.The picture was taken from the Mojave Desert area near Victorville

This incredible picture shows a huge meteor hurtling to Earth during the annual Geminid meteor shower.

Astro-photogrpaher Wally Pacholk captured this amazing shot inthe Mojave Desert area near Victorville under a dark and almost clearsky.

The annual cosmic fireworks have been growing in intensity inrecent decades with up to 160 meteors visible per hour under optimalconditions. They travel across the sky at about 22miles per second andare fairly easy to spot.

The Geminids are caused by the Earth crossing thedebris-strewn path of the extinct comet 3200 Phaethon. The firstrecorded sightings were in 1862 in England and the U.S. In these earlydays only 14 meteors were recorded per hour.

Viewing conditions were particularly good this year because it peaked on Monday morning two days before a new Moon.

They are best viewed from the Northern Hemisphere although youcan see up to 20 meteors per hour near the horizon in the SouthernHemisphere.

Earthquakes don't rock Nebraska very often. In fact, seismicallyspeaking, it is one of the quietest places in North America.Nevertheless, on Dec. 16th at 8:54 pm CST, USGS seismographs detected amagnitude 3.5 temblor centered near Auburn, Nebraska:

"Itsounded like those loud grain haulers that drive by, but about fivetimes louder," reports Laurie Riley, who lives near the epicenter. "Thewhole house shook. My kids came running down stairs - they were scared.It even moved my car, [which was parked outside on icy ground]."

And then the really curious thing happened.

Minutes after the quake, around 9 pm CST, lightning-like flashes lit upthe skies around the area of the quake. Telephones in policedepartments and TV stations rang with reports of bright lights, loudrumbles and shaking ground. Sky watchers, not only in southeasternNebraska, but also in neighboring Oklahoma, Missouri and Kansas, saw a"bright fireball" with "green streamers" moving from northwest tosoutheast.

Could these events be connected? Nebraska State Trooper JerryChab, an experienced amateur astronomer who witnessed the lights andwas one of the first to report them, says no. "I think we have the mostcosmic of coincidences: A bright [meteoritic] fireball around the sametime as an earthquake." Indeed, eyewitness descriptions of the fireballare consistent with a meteoroid disintegrating in the atmosphere. Onthe other hand, several readers have pointed out scientific studiesthat associate lightning-like phenomena (including ball lightning) withearthquakes: #1, #2, #3. The fireball, they suggest, might have been a rare manifestation of "earthquake lightning."

Earthquakes in Nebraska are rare, so what are the odds of one happeningwithin minutes of a meteoritic fireball? This might be a cosmiccoincidence. Or there could be some yet-to-be-explained linkage betweenthe events. Readers with photos or eyewitness reports are invited tosubmit them here.

Summary: The nature of this event isuncertain--indeed, it might be more than one event. Around 9 pm on Dec.16th, sky watchers in southeast Nebraska saw a brilliant fireballstreak across the sky. It was so bright that observers with overcastskies saw it shining through clouds. Telephones in news stations andpolice departments rang with reports of bright lights, loud sounds, andground shaking. Minutes earlier, around 8:53 pm CST, the USGS saysthere was a magnitude 3.5 earthquake in southeastern Nebraska.

Eyewitness Accounts:

Location: 5 miles NW of Pawnee City, Nebraska

Comments: Nebraska State TrooperJerry Chab: "At 2100 CST tonight a very bright meteor lit up the entirecompletely overcast sky like lightning in southeast Nebraska. Itflashed for approximately 1.5-2 seconds and was followed by sonic boomsand ground shaking which prompted many calls by the public to lawenforcement in a three County wide area."

"I was approximately 5 miles NW of Pawnee City, Ne. when Iobserved the flashes," Chab continues. "It was a very bright one, thesky dimmed a bit and it was followed by another bright flash. Betweenthe two bright flashes the sky never completely dimmed. Again, this alloccurred within 1.5-2 seconds. I talked to a truck driver who wasapprox. 8 miles straight East of me who saw the same thing. A localDeputy was about 16 miles ENE of me and also saw it. The first 911 callcame at 2201. The calls were about explosions AND earthquakes. Oneindividual call mentioned 'two' explosions. I attributed the calls tosonic booms."

"If the Earthquake is confirmed, as it appears to be, I thinkwe have the most cosmic of coincidences: A large fireball around thesame time of an Earthquake. I am simply amazed!!"

Location: Nebraska City, Nebraska (near Auburn, Nebraska)

Comments: Laurie Riley: "It soundedlike the loud grain haulers that go by but about 5 times louder. Thewhole house shook. The kids came running down stairs - they werescared. The only thing I noticed last night is my vehicle was moved -since it's been snowing and ice out, I park backwards and park with twotires on my sidewalk for traction and after the quake, it shook myvehicle so the back tire slide off the sidewalk and the front tire wasalmost off. It lasted about 5 seconds or so. Very loud rumble."

Location: Warren County, Missouri

Comments: Doug Kniffen: "My daughterand I saw the fireball from east central Missouri (Warren County).9:05pm on my wristwatch (set to WWV). The fireball appeared aboutmagnitude -6, with distinctly green streamers outlining the tail.Certainly an impressive sight, sure wish I had a picture. Very lowapparent altitude, would have missed it if the trees hadn't droppedtheir leaves. Told my daughter that there was a good chance of freshmeterorites in Nebraska. Nice to know that my estimate of a fall zonewas close."

Location: Hastings, Nebraska

Comments: Rich Cartier: "Sitting in awell-lit living room watching TV, I noticed out the east-facing livingroom window a bright fireball heading from northwest to southeast. Itlasted about 2 seconds with a bright flash at the end. It wasremarkable, since it was overcast, and I was in a bright room, yet itstill caught my eye."

Location: between Wichita and Andover, Kansas

Comments: Alan Howarter: "At about9:06 pm on Wednesday, December 16, 2009 I was driving North andwitnessed what appeared to be a very bright meteor toward the northeastthat lit up for a couple of seconds."

Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Comments: Rick Foster: "I saw a hugegreen fireball at 9:03 pm from Oklahoma City almost due north. Very lowon horizon. Looked like it was moving NW to SE. I was in my truckdriving north on I-35. It was very large, green with orange sparks andvery short tail."

Thesearch continues for a full moon-bright meteoroid likely to have landedin west suburban Beijing on Wednesday in what astronomers said couldlead to one of the biggest discoveries in Beijing this year.

Witnesses in Beijing and nearby Tianjin recorded a clearlyvisible fireball-like meteorite descending near the west horizon ofBeijing at 10:23 pm on Dec 16.

The surveillance camera from the planetarium taped a 2-secondfootage of the fall phenomena, in which a bright shooting star,carrying a visible tail, flew towards the east and exploded intogreater brightness before disappearing on the horizon.

"We were at Jianxiangqiao Bridge when driving west-bound onthe North Fourth Ring Road when we caught sight of the brightnessmoving to the southeast," Li Xin, a researcher with the BeijingPlanetarium, wrote on the organization's online forum before postingthe surveillance video right after the witness.

"The brightness of the meteor was close to a full moon," hewrote. "If this meteorite can be recovered, it can become one of thebiggest discoveries in Beijing."

Other residents in Beijing also reported witnesses of the "fireball-like meteorite" to the planetarium.

"Wow, what was it that I saw," wrote one Beijing-based blogger on thepopular portal douban.com, only 12 minutes after the fall phenomenaoccurred.

"I was at Chaoyangmen on the East Second Ring Road and I just saw abright green ball of light moving to the south. There were no noisesand everything seemed fine outside my car," wrote the blogger, whonamed himself "awkward uncle".

But the online witnesses did not draw much serious attention before verified by the astronomy authority.

Astronomers from the Beijing Planetarium said the witness wastelling the truth and researchers said they have already reported thewitness to the International Meteor Organization as the latest visualmeteor on Earth.

Li also estimated the location of the landing to be about 40km west of downtown Beijing, while Zhu Jin, director of theplanetarium, put the estimation at between 100 and 200 km from centralBeijing. The Baihuashan mountainous area at the border of Beijing andnearby Hebei province was noted to be the most possible location, Zhusaid.

Scientists have launched a campaign online and through TV tocollect witnesses and accounts. Residents in west Beijing areencouraged to contribute.

But it was unknown what the debris of the meteor would belike, experts said. If recovered, the discovery will be viewed as a"fall" according to international practice.

The Beijing Planetarium has never collected any meteorite from past meteors in Beijing.

As of mid-2006, there have been approximately 1,050 witnessed falls producing specimens for the world's collections.

"The witness was lucky. No techniques were involved whatsoever," Li said.

A motorist travelling towards Lynn was amazed when he saw aflame-spewing UFO shoot across the sky and then disappear before hiseyes.

Jimmy Greenwood (45) is convinced the flying object, about thesize of a football, was a meteorite, but is appealing to Lynn Newsreaders to help him find out for sure.

Mr Greenwood was driving along the A47, just outside ofWisbech, at around 12:45pm on Saturday when he saw a bright white lighttravel across the sky with flames coming out behind it.

He said: "I was on my way to see my daughter. It was snowingand I was driving around 35 to 40mph. I saw this really bright lightover the fields to my right for about two to three seconds and then itjust burned away. It looked like a firework rocket and was movingreally quickly.

"The people in the car behind definitely saw it too,they were pointing towards it and you couldn't really miss it. I'venever really seen anything like it and I think it was definitely ameteorite."

Mr Greenwood, of Townley Close, Upwell, immediately phoned his daughter and brother to tell them what he saw.

Sightings of a rare daylight "fireball" - thought to be a meteor - was seen flashing over the Wisbech skies.

A meteor which has passed through Earth's atmosphere is known as ameteorite, and experts say pieces of the space rock could now bescattered across a Fenland field.

It was spotted by Jimmy Greenwood, who was driving along theA47 just outside Wisbech at about 1.15pm on Saturday. The 45-year-old,from Upwell, said: "I've never seen anything like it. It was about fourhouses high and burning white. It went straight across quickly, into afield and disappeared. It had a vapour trail. It was unbelievable."

Dr John Mason, acting director of the BritishAstronomical Association's meteor section, said: "Such sightings arerare since few fireballs are bright enough to be visible in broaddaylight. Sightings have so far been received from observers in SouthYorkshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk, but it's likely that the eventwould have been visible across most of the East Midlands and EasternEngland."

The Society of Popular Astrology's (SPA) internet forum was later buzzing with people's accounts of the sighting.

Assistant meteor director at the SPA David Entwistle, said:"What people have seen is a bright, fast- moving light in the sky - ameteor. It is very unusual to have a daylight meteor. If we get acollection of reports from people, we can try to triangulate the pathof the meteor and if it landed, work out where."

Mr Entwistle is urging anyone who witnessed the fireball toe-mail the time of the event, the altitude, location and its appearanceto either len.entwisle@btopenworld.com or radiometeor@popastro.com

OceanCity - A mysterious, glowing hot object fell from the sky and landed onthe beach in Ocean City last week, but it remains uncertain this weekjust what it is and from where it came.

Early last Tuesday morning, an Ocean City cab driver waswalking down the Boardwalk in the area of 22nd Street when he saw abright glowing object fall from the sky from north to south and land onthe beach roughly 20 yards away from him. Classic Cab Company driverDerrick Miller typically drops his taxi back off at companyheadquarters on 26th Street after his shift and walks down theBoardwalk to his home in the downtown area.

Over the years, he has established a relationship with aresident wild fox that inhabits the area around 22nd Street in front ofthe Grand Hotel and often brings food to the animal. Early last Tuesdaymorning, Miller was following his normal routine when he saw a brightlight flash across the sky from the north with the glowing objectlanding on the beach about 20 yards away.

"I was doing my usual thing and I was on the beachright in front of the Grand when I saw what looked at first like ashooting star," he said. "It crashed into the sand about 20 yards awayfrom me. When I checked it out, it had made a hole in the sand about afoot and a half wide and about six inches deep. Whatever it was, it wasglowing red hot with sparks and fire coming from some of the holes init."

Miller said he examined the object closely, but could nothandle it because of the heat. Instead, he buried it in the sand andmarked the location with a stick. He returned about five or six hourslater and recovered the object, which was still warm to the touch, butcool enough to pick up and handle.

The unknown oblong object is about an inch-and-a-half long onits longest side and an inch or so wide. Its shape is irregular andappears to contain different types of material. It is covered withsmall holes around the outside that appear to be fissures of some sort.Weighed this week at the Classic Cab warehouse, it came it at exactly20 grams.

It is uncertain just what the object is and where it camefrom, but it fell from the sky during one of the most celebratedastronomical events in the northern hemisphere this year, lendingcredence to the working theory that is possibly a meteorite or otherkind of space debris. According to NASA officials, the Geminid meteorshower arched its way across the northern hemisphere sky from Dec.6-18, providing one of the most visible astronomical events of theyear.

According to NASA, the Geminid meteor shower reached its peakon Dec. 13-14, which puts last week's discovery on the beach in OceanCity right in the window of the most activity in the area. While hecould not be reached for comment or possible identification of theobject, Bill Cooke of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office confirmed theGeminid meteor shower provided fireworks over the mid-Atlantic arealast week.

"It's the Geminid meteor shower and it should have peaked onDec. 13th and 14th under ideal viewing conditions," he said. "TheGeminids are strong and getting stronger each year."

Miller said in the days before and after his discovery of theobject on the beach, he noticed an increase in the number of shootingstars observed in the area, particularly on the beach at night or indarker areas such as Ocean Pines while he was driving his cab. He alsosaid many of his fares had pointed out the phenomenon.

According to NASA, Geminids are pieces of debris from astrange object known as 3200 Phaeton. Long thought to be an asteroid,Phaeton is now classified as an extinct comet. According to NASA, "itis basically the rocky skeleton of a comet that lost its ice after toomany close encounters with the sun," and "Earth runs into a stream ofdebris from 3200 Phaeton every year in mid-December, causing meteors tofly from the constellation Gemini."

Of course, it remains uncertain just what the object Millerdiscovered on the beach last week is, but the presence of the Geminidmeteor shower during the time it was found suggests it could be anobject from outer space, possibly a meteorite.

A meteorite is defined by NASA as a natural object originatingin outer space that survives a trip through the Earth's atmosphere andlands on the ground. Most meteorites come from small astronomicalobjects called meteoroids, but they are sometimes produced by impactsof asteroids. According to NASA, meteorites that are recovered afterbeing observed as they transited through the atmosphere or impacted theEarth are called "falls." All other meteorites are known as "finds."

According to NASA, most meteoroids disintegrate when enteringthe Earth's atmosphere. However, an estimated 500 meteorites ranging insize from marbles to basketballs or larger do reach the surface eachyear. Few meteorites are large enough to create impact craters.Instead, they typically arrive at the surface at their terminalvelocity and, at most, create a small pit, according to NASA.

''Itis impossible to survive on a continent like this for 50,000 years andnot have an intimate knowledge of the natural world around you,including the night sky,'' he said.

He searched historical records for Aboriginal stories with referencesto comets, meteors and cosmic impacts, and looked for matchingastronomical events.

The Palm Valley crater, which the team proposes to name Puka,was probably formed millions of years ago, so people could not havewitnessed this impact.

''But perhaps the Arrernte knew rocks fell out of the sky andmaybe they deduced that a large rock caused the big bowl-shapedcrater,'' he said.

Another Arrernte Dreaming about a large impact crater calledGosse's Bluff, which formed about 142 million years ago, ''closelyparallels the scientific explanation'', he said.

The crater, about 175 kilometres west of Alice Springs, isknown as Tnorala and considered a sacred place by the Western Arrerntepeople, who say it was formed when a group of sky-women were dancing asstars in the Milky Way.

One woman who grew tired placed her baby in a wooden basket,but it fell to Earth, ''forcing the rocks upward'' into the crater'scircular mountain range.

After spotting the Palm Valley crater on the internet, MrHamacher visited the site with two Macquarie University geophysicists,Craig O'Neill and Andrew Buchel, and an astrophysicist, Tui Britton.

''We found evidence of shocked quartz, which is only produced when there is a substantial impact,'' Mr Hamacher said.

They also determined that the structure was bowl shaped under the surface, which could not be explained by erosion.

1 comment:

I have to say, that event certainly DOES sound like a computer-generated display. Is someone having a bit of fun with us? Perhaps testing some new equipment. We're long in the day when we cannot even believe what we see.

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